Saturday, 6 July 2013

Boko Haram Kill 42, Mostly Students In Yobe School Attack

Boko Haram Kill 42, Mostly Students In Yobe School Attack
Gunmen believed to be Islamists from Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgent group killed 42 people, mostly students, and an English teacher Mohammed Musa was shot in the chest in an overnight attack on a secondary school in restive Yobe state, a medical worker and residents said Saturday.“We received 42 dead bodies of students and other staff of Government Secondary School (in) Mamudo last night.

Some of them had gunshot wounds while many of them had burns and ruptured tissues,” Haliru Aliyu of the Potiskum General Hospital told AFP.

Some of the pupils were burnt alive in the latest school attack blamed on a radical terror group, survivors said.

Parents screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and gunshot victims.

Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.

“That’s it, I’m taking my other boys out of school,” he told The Associated Press as he wept over the two corpses. He said he had three younger children in a nearby school.

“It’s not safe,” he said. “The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers.”

Survivors at the Potiskum General Hospital and its mortuary said gunmen attacked Government Secondary School in Mamudo village, 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Potiskum town at about 3 a.m. Saturday. The gunmen are believed to be from the Boko Haram sect whose name means “Western education is sacrilege.”

“We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me,” said 15-year-old Musa Hassan.

He put his arm up in defense, and suffered a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write with.

He said the gunmen came armed with jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school’s administrative block and one of the hostels.

“They burned the children alive,” he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.

He and teachers at the morgue said dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush but have not been seen since.

Some bodies are so charred they could not be identified, so many parents do not know if their children survived or died.
Naij.com